


you’re the smile i want to see, you’re the pages i want to keep

by hihoplastic



Series: STV Tumblr Prompts/Reposts [3]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 16:20:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4794185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hihoplastic/pseuds/hihoplastic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They bicker and argue over sections of his novel, things that work and things that don’t, changes and edits and he doesn’t notice when they stop meeting at her office or coffee shops, but at his apartment. It’s small and cluttered but he likes the way she runs her fingers along the spines of his books, the way her face lights up when he makes dinner and she admits she’s a terrible cook and relies mostly on take out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you’re the smile i want to see, you’re the pages i want to keep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lodessa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/gifts).



> \- For @lodessa, based on the tumblr prompt, _‘i called the wrong number and started talking about my life and you only interrupted me after a few a few minutes of me revealing some pretty personal stuff and now youre invested in my life troubles’ au_

Tossing the phone on the sofa, he runs a hand through his hair and tries not to groan. He knows his sister means well. He knows she’s trying to help but if he has to listen to one more lecture on getting back on his feet and back into the world - not to mention the not-so-subtle dating encouragement - he’s going to disconnect the phone line. Or move. He’s heard Costa Rica is lovely this time of year. Any time of year, really.

Taking a deep breath, he forces himself to calm down, and remind himself she has his best interests at heart.

He makes himself a cup of tea and sits down at his desk, moving stacks of papers to find his glasses. Notes and character outlines and research and rejection letters are scattered everywhere, and since he can’t write he might as well organize his life. The messy desk seems as good as any place to start.

He gets ten minutes of peace before the phone rings again, and his tenuous calm breaks.

“Look, I know you’re worried, but I’m fine, Sekaya,” he insists, cutting her off before she can speak. “I appreciate the concern, but I’m not coming home for the memorial. I don’t want to speak to the _ajq'jab'_ or other veterans or a shrink or anyone else. It was three years ago and I’m trying to put it behind me and I would think you of all people would understand that.” She tries to protest, but he’s been bottling this for too long, and the words are spilling out of his mouth without censor, “I have a life here, friends here, and maybe the writing isn’t going as well as it should but a change of scenery isn’t going to change that, and frankly neither is a woman, so stop trying to set me up with childhood friends I haven’t seen in thirty years; I don’t need to be mothered, and I’m not interested in going on blind dates or-or-or dating websites or whatever the hell it is people do these days when they want shallow conversation and meaningless liaisons and no, I am not uptight because I’m not having sex I’m uptight because you keep calling and insisting I should—”

“I’m going to stop you there, Mr. Chakotay, as I’m fairly certain you don’t want to tell me what you should do anymore than I want to hear it.”

The voice is amused, feminine but low, with a soft gravelly touch that makes his skin tingle.

“Sekaya?” He can’t quite keep the hope out of his voice.

“Kathryn Janeway,” she says, and he cringes. “I’m the editor in chief at—”

“I know who you are.” Closing his eyes, he drops into the sofa and buries his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, I thought you were my sister.”

“I gathered,” she says, but she doesn’t sound angry or annoyed, in fact far from it. Amused, yes, but there’s a tenderness in her speech he doesn’t understand.

“What—” He clears his throat. “What can I do for you, Ms. Janeway?”

“Kathryn, please,” she corrects. “And I’m calling about the manuscript you submitted.”

Chakotay frowns. “It was rejected weeks ago.”

He can practically hear her roll her eyes. “I know. Unfortunately, unsolicited manuscripts often wind up in the slush pile, and our interns go through them. They pass the hopefuls along to our genre editors, and I believe your work had the misfortune of being read by an idiot.”

“I’m sorry?”

Still stunned and mortified, he barely hears her next words: “I’d like to set up a meeting to discuss your manuscript.”

“Of course,” he says, scrambling to find a pen, but she’s already continuing on, informing him her assistant will make the arrangements, and he freezes. “I’m sorry, you meant a meeting with Mr. Paris, correct? The fiction editor.”

She laughs, and the sound brings a smile to his face. “With me, Mr. Chakotay.”

–-

He meets her at a coffee house three days later, nervous as all hell and trying desperately not to show it.

She isn’t at all what he expected, but the moment she rises and shakes his hand and says his name, everything seems to fit into place. She couldn’t be anyone else, couldn’t look or sound or act any differently because t wouldn’t be _her_ if she did, and the thought is comforting to him for some reason.

She sits back down and crosses her legs and takes a sip of her coffee and he feels himself relax, despite the stakes.

She gets right to the point - she’d loved his book, half-memoir, half-historical fiction on the war, his father’s service, the small town he grew up in, his tribe.

“I have edits, of course.”

He chuckles. “Of course.”

Reaching into her briefcase, she pulls out his manuscript, covered from front to back in red markings. His eyes widen and she shrugs.

“It was very good.”

Taking the stack, he flips through it. There isn’t a page left untouched. “You did all this?”

He looks up just in time to see her tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “I took a day off.”

“Why?”

“We spend far too much time looking at our history with rose colored glasses,” she says. “We need novels like yours, to remind us of what’s important.”

Her voice is slightly wistful, slightly melancholy, and he takes a cautious sip of tea. “You lost someone. In the war.”

Her eyes widen, her spine tensing, but after a moment she relaxes, offers him a small smile. “My father and fiancé,” she tells him, leaning back in her chair.

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.”

She considers him, and he knows there’s something she wants to ask. She licks her lips, her eyes darting to his briefly before she looks away and clears her throat. She wraps up the meeting shortly after, but makes one, to his mind, glorious error.

“Have a look at those, and feel free to call with any questions,” she says.

So he does.

He calls on weekends to ask about structure and pops by her office to argue about pacing and bribes her with coffee to debate the merits of classic versus contemporary literature and the publishing industry and the U.S Poet Laureate.

He discovers she’s a workaholic, loves her mother and sister dearly, dotes on her nieces and nephews, drinks at least four cups of coffee a day, hates public transit, and loves ballet.

In turn, he tells her about his tribe, his family, his writing efforts. He tells her he’s been working on the story for decades, but it was the war that prompted him to finish it. His father’s death.

He doesn’t tell her the way she says his name gives him goosebumps. That her smile makes him smile. That her laugh is the first thing in a long time to bring him peace.

When she admits, reluctantly, that her sister set her up with an artist featured at her gallery, he pretends to be happy for her.

When she tells him it was a disaster, he tries not to grin.

They bicker and argue over sections of his novel, things that work and things that don’t, changes and edits and he doesn’t notice when they stop meeting at her office or coffee shops, but at his apartment. It’s small and cluttered but he likes the way she runs her fingers along the spines of his books, the way her face lights up when he makes dinner and she admits she’s a terrible cook and relies mostly on take out.

He likes the way she talks to him - not as a veteran or a cultural stereotype. She gets excited when he explains customs and spirituality, and there’s a nativity to her that on anyone else might be offensive, but she’s so genuinely curious, so eager to learn about what makes him different, what makes him _him_ , that he isn’t bothered by it. It’s the first time any woman he’s been with - or not been with - has really bothered to ask.

He tells her how after the war, he tried to find his way back to his culture, his roots, the land, his own spirituality.

She tells him how after the war, she stayed in bed for months.

Across the table, he takes her hand and brushes his thumb over her skin and he can see her panic in the way she leaves shortly after, the way she avoids him, the way she lets her assistant take her calls.

Part of him wants to be angry, but he keeps remembering the look on her face, imagining the look on his own, and he gets it. So he waits.

He sends her revisions and lets her email them back to him. He works on other projects, new stories and carpentry and getting in better shape. He starts going for long walks in the morning. He takes a trip home. Keeps in better touch with his friends.

B'Elanna insists he come to a party she’s hosting, to meet her new “boy toy,” as she calls him with a wide, fond smile, who as it turns out is Kathryn’s genre editor. They recognize each other instantly, and his eyes sweep the crowd.

Tom chuckles. “She’s in the other room,” he says, “or on the balcony trying to escape. It’s a toss up.”

Chakotay blinks, but nods gratefully and passes off B'Elanna’s questions to Tom and slips away. He finds her outside, leaning against the rail, a thin shawl the only thing protecting her from the chill. Without thinking, he removes his jacket and drapes it over her shoulders.

“I thought you might be here,” she murmurs, fingers curling into the lapels.

“Small world, apparently.”

She nods, eyes fixed on a point in the distance, and he shifts uncomfortably.

“Did I do something wrong?”

The question makes her start, her eyes jumping to his. “No.”

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

She looks away. “Yes.”

“Care to tell me why?” He keeps the accusation out of his voice as best as possible, but she still flinches.

“When I found your manuscript, I didn’t expect to find you.”

Chakotay nods. “That’s usually how these things happen.”

“And what is this…thing?”

“What do you want it to be?”

She pulls his jacket tighter around her frame. “I don’t know.”

“That’s okay.” At her confusion, he smiles. “There isn’t a time limit, Kathryn. It’s not a race to a deadline.”

“Everything’s a deadline.”

“You only say that because you work in publishing,” he teases, but her expression doesn’t change.

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” she says. “I’m not easy to–there’s a lot of baggage.”

Shaking his head, Chakotay lays a hand over hers on the railing. “You’ve read my book, Kathryn.”

“That’s different.”

“Why?”

“Books don’t make me feel anything anymore,” she says suddenly. “I read everything from poetry to crime novels and nothing–terrible tragedies–and I don’t feel anything and I haven’t since the morning I woke up in a military hospital and they told me my father and fiancé were dead. Books - written words - nothing compares to that emptiness.”

He nods slowly, stepping in closer when she shivers. “I know. Believe me, Kathryn, I understand–”

“Your book—” Her voice catches. “I cried for hours. The first time. I sat on the couch in my office and I just…cried. You made me feel something I hadn’t–and then I called, and you thought I was your sister and it was so endearing I decided to meet with you myself instead of sending Tom and you were funny and attractive and kind and I wasn’t—I wasn’t prepared for that.”

“Are we ever?” he asks softly, but inside he thinks of hope as a thing with feathers and can’t breathe.

“I’m not centered, Chakotay. I’m not—I moved on, but I didn’t heal, and I know that, and I’ve been okay with that until you came along, and now I’m—you’ve been through so much and lost so many people and you’ve finally found some semblance of peace and I’m not willing to risk putting you off that path with my—” She waves her hand in the air.

“Baggage?”

“Yes.”

“Has anyone ever told you you have the most amazing laugh?”

Kathryn blinks. “What?”

“It’s wonderful. It’s at a slightly higher pitch than your voice usually is, but still…smokey.”

“Smokey?”

“Very.”

She furrows her brow. “And that’s a good thing?”

“Kathryn, I didn’t find inner peace and stumble into a book deal. I stumbled into you and found peace.”

“And a book deal.”

He smiles. “Yes. And as grateful as I am for the employment, I care less about that than I do about you.”

“Chakotay—”

“I’ve been angry for so long, Kathryn, you think letting go of that doesn’t scare me? It’s terrifying.”

Licking her lips, she stares up at him. “Then how do you do it?”

Leaning in, he places a lingering kiss to her cheek. “The reward is greater than the risk.”

–-

He’s heard from her several times since the party, but all work-related. He isn’t surprised: the book’s coming out and there’s a reading and a dinner and signing and he knows she has more than his work to focus on, but he misses her.

It’s taken a shove from his sister, B'Elanna, and surprisingly Tom, but they’ve finally convinced him to invite her to the after party. “As a date,” B'Elanna had insisted, “A romantic, sexually charged date,” with Tom in the background, “Yeah, with all the pining he’s been doing I’m pretty sure she’s gotten the hint.”

Taking a deep breath, he calls her office, hoping to catch her before she’s left. The phone keeps ringing, and he’s almost given up when she answers, slightly out of breath and obviously annoyed.

“No, Phoebe, we are not going to talk about his anymore. I’m working and you’re doing whatever it is you do and I don’t have time to listen to another lecture on how nice Chakotay is or how brilliant or how considerate and I don’t need to hear about Chakotay’s perfect hair and perfect arms and “utterly kissable face” I’m well aware of all of it and he isn’t pressing me so neither should you. I’m leaving now, I’m going home, I’m going to order Chinese, take a long bath, drink a bottle of wine, and not think about this anymore tonight, understood?“

Chakotay can’t wipe the grin off his face, and he’s pretty sure she can tell when he says, “I have an utterly kissable face?”

There’s a long silence on the other end. “I thought you were my sister.”

“I gathered.”

Another pause. “What can I do for you?”

She sounds so uncomfortable, so stiff, that he can’t make himself ask. It isn’t the right time, or place, and he should ask in person anyway.

“Ah, I was just…calling to confirm the time tomorrow.”

“My assistant handles the scheduling.”

He tries not to bristle. “Right, of course. Have a good night, then.”

“Wait. I’m sorry. I’m just–”

He smiles, hoping she can hear it through the phone. “I know the feeling.”

There’s another silence, longer than the last, and he sighs. “Goodnight, Kathryn.”

“Goodnight, Chakotay.”

–-

He’s puttering around the kitchen, hungry but unmotivated, when the doorbell rings.

“I thought I’d skip the bath,” she says. In one hand she holds a bottle of wine, in the other, two bags of Chinese take-out. “I thought I’d skip the not thinking about it part, too. If you don’t mind.”

His grin is answer enough. She slips inside, kicks her heels off by the door and deposits the food on the counter, her coat on the chair. He watches as she busies herself unpacking containers and finding plates and silverware and she looks so much like she belongs that for a moment he can’t breathe. She’s nattering on about the food, and he thinks she might be explaining the chemical processes in stir-fry versus sauté but he isn’t really paying attention.

He barely notices that he’s crossed the room, that he’s standing so close she bumps into him when she turns.

“Kathryn.”

Her eyes jump to his and there’s a pause and then she’s kissing him, her hands around his neck and he wastes no time at all. His hands find her hips and back and neck and then he’s backing her into the counter. He reaches blindly behind her and shoves aside the cartons and plates and he thinks he hears something fall but he’s too distracted, hoisting her up and the kiss breaks with the change in height so he buries his face in her neck. Her throat jumps and she gasps as his lips find her pulse and she wraps her legs around his back, pulling him closer.

She drags his face back to hers and kisses him again, and again, and again until all he can taste and smell is her.

He whispers are name against her mouth and she shudders, fingers curling around the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Kathryn,” he manages again, a bit louder.

“Hmm?”

Her eyelashes brush his ear as she kisses his neck.

“Will you go with me to—”

“Yes.”

“You don’t even know what I was gonna say.”

“Don’t care. Yes.”

He cups her face in his palms. Then, for reasons unbeknownst to him: “I’m glad I thought you were my sister.”

Kathryn laughs, eyes bright and head thrown back, and he kisses her throat to hide his smile.


End file.
